While the Virginia women throttled the Gators in a decisive victory, the Cavalier men went stroke-for-stroke with Florida — so how did they lose the meet?
The answer? The sport is called swimming and diving, not just swimming.
Virginia officially opened its season Friday against long-time rival Florida at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center Natatorium in Gainesville, Fla. To no one’s surprise, the top ranked Cavalier women remained as dominant as ever, winning both relays and all but three individual events — sweeping the podium in the 50 freestyle, 100 butterfly and 500 freestyle — culminating in a 224-127 final score. No divers needed.
However, the No. 13 ranked Virginia men, although accumulating a slight lead by the conclusion of the morning session, fell to No. 4 Florida in the afternoon with the team scores ending at 191.5 to 159.5. This is still a massive improvement from last year’s results, where the Cavalier men only scored 69 points to the Gators’ 231.
The loss on the men’s side comes from a springboard-sized caveat — Virginia no longer sponsors varsity diving. So Florida’s divers competed completely uncontested and were able to score toward the dual. Those points made the 32-point margin — without them, Virginia and Florida would have tied.
There is no guarantee Virginia would have tied or beaten Florida on the boards even if it had men’s divers in the water. However, prior Cavalier signees such as RJ Snyder — who recommitted to SMU and was just named ACC Diver of the Week — demonstrated the promise the Virginia divers had, making the effect of uncontested board points on the final score impossible to ignore.
Despite the loss on paper, the Cavalier men notably won both contested relays, and the prodigious freshman duo of Maximus Williamson and Thomas Heilman excelled in their individual events. Conversely, the weakest link for the Cavalier men proved to be the distance events — the fastest Cavalier was unable to best even the slowest Gator in both the 500 and 1,000 freestyle events.
11 a.m.
The women set the tone from the outset, putting on a clinic in the 400 medley relay. They sat behind at the 200 yard mark after a strong breaststroke leg from Florida sophomore Anita Bottazzo but surged back for a decisive win off the back of junior Claire Curzan’s 49.26 butterfly split and sophomore Anna Moesch’s 46.35 freestyle anchor leg. These are both times worthy of a podium-relay performance at NCAAs, let alone an October dual meet — in fact, their time of 3:25.91 would have placed them fifth at March’s championships.
Also of note, freshman and Italian Olympian Sara Curtis closed Virginia’s “B” relay in an even quicker 46.24 freestyle leg, emphasizing the endless relay options Coach Todd DeSorbo has on his roster this season.
The Cavalier men showed up and showed out in the wake of the women, with their relay besting Florida’s in times of 3:05.29 to 3:05.66. The four men Virginia fielded are all underclassmen — Williamson and Heilman were sandwiched by sophomore returners Spencer Nicholas and David King who led off and anchored, respectively.
Despite the notable absence of Florida’s senior and Canadian Olympian Josh Liendo, this is still a promising relay win for a men’s program that has only recently become championship contenders as a result of their No.1 ranked freshmen class.
The momentum quickly broke, though, as the men’s distance contingent faltered in the 1,000-yard freestyle. The Florida men, who have an historically strong distance program, finished first through fourth, with Virginia freshman Nathan Szobota finishing fifth, albeit closely, and sophomore Dillon Wright coming in a distant sixth.
The first round of sprint events picked things back up. Junior sprint specialist Lawson Ficken nabbed her first official collegiate win for the Cavaliers in a 23.60 in the butterfly. Over only two lengths of the pool, that is substantially quicker than the 24.36 she posted at the team’s exhibition dual at Navy — signalling a quick acclimation to the program after transferring from Auburn. Senior captain Carly Novelline touched just behind Ficken in 23.67 — Novelline split 22.38 in Virginia's 2024 NCAA winning relay, but was not part of the 2025 quartet. They both remain strong options for this leg come championship season.
Another highlight of the morning came in senior Aimee Canny’s collegiate return to the 200 IM, an event that was at the top of the South African Olympian’s repertoire coming into college. She has since focused primarily on the 500 and 200 freestyle and the 200 breaststroke through her time at Virginia. This endurance training has clearly paid off, as her 1:55.03 lifetime best swim Friday was capped by a 26.15 freestyle leg — this would have been the fastest closing 50 at last year’s NCAA Championships. Canny clearly remains one of the most versatile swimmers on this roster and will play a key role in Virginia’s run for a never-done-before sixth consecutive national title.
This event also saw the No.1 and No. 2 recruits of Williamson and Heilman go — believe it or not — 1 and 2. Williamson’s first individual collegiate win was done in dominant fashion — stopping the clock a whopping three seconds ahead of his teammate in 1:43.55. Heilman then touched at 1:46.63, still another two seconds ahead of the first Gator to the wall.
The race of the morning, though, was unequivocally the women’s 50-yard freestyle, with Virginia finishing in the top three spots. Graduate student Bryn Greenwaldt got the touch in 22.05, with Moesch and Curtis ludicrously close behind in 22.07 and 22.09. The new-look Cavalier sprint group is proving itself quickly, chipping away at any doubts harboured due to the key losses of both Walsh sisters and relay keystone Maxine Parker.
At the conclusion of the morning session, the women were up 88 points over Florida’s 43, and the men edged out the Gators 67-64.
12:30 p.m.
Diving occurred in a midday session, which essentially was a point-pooling showcase for the Gators, as now the Cavaliers’ only dives occur at the beginning of a swimming race.
4 p.m.
Moesch wasted no time kicking off the afternoon session by winning the 200 freestyle in an astonishing 1:41.42. This marked an improvement from her previous best time of 1:42.39 that she swam en route to a fifth place finish at the 2025 NCAA Championships.
For context, in the 2022-23 season, Virginia’s own Alex Walsh had the fastest time in the nation that season, a 1:41.63 at the 2023 ACC Championships. Moesch producing a result like this in October is extremely promising for the build of their 800 freestyle relay — the only relay Virginia did not win at both the 2024 and 2025 NCAA Championships.
The Virginia men hit their own 1-2-3 of the meet in the men’s 200 butterfly, thanks to Heilman — a U.S. Olympian in the event — who touched in a superb 1:41.69, followed by junior Hayden Bellotti and freshman Thomas Mercer with 1:45’s.
The 500-yard freestyle closed the individual events for the meet, with Canny earning her second win of the day in yet another personal best performance — an impressive October feat in that swimmer’s primary event. She was flanked by junior Cavan Gormsen and sophomore Katie Grimes. In stark contrast, the men’s distance contingent failed to redeem themselves in the 500 yard freestyle, with Wright, Szobota and Mercer unable to touch ahead of any of the four Gators.
To close up the one-day stint down south, the women’s “A” and “B” teams dominated the 400 freestyle relay, while the men managed to secure a second relay win with Heilman, King, Williamson and senior Jack Aikins.
The Cavaliers will remain in Florida for a training camp over the University’s fall break, before returning to competition Oct. 24 when they host North Carolina. The Tar Heel women are currently slated as No. 14, and the men sit at No. 19.
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